Spherical mass profile for a flat rotation curve
ID: spherical-mass-profile-for-a-flat-rotation-curve
In a spherically dominated Newtonian gravitational field, the circular orbit speed satisfies . A flat galaxy rotation curve therefore implies . Differentiating the enclosed mass gives , yielding the inverse-square density profile. This is a halo-region approximation, not a mass inversion for a flattened stellar disk. A flat curve extending to infinite radius would imply infinite mass, so a real halo profile must eventually change or truncate.
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